Posted on 02/21/2007 8:04:29 AM PST by SmithL
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A man who was fired by IBM for visiting an adult chat room at work is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal.
James Pacenza, 58, of Montgomery, says he visits chat rooms to treat traumatic stress incurred in 1969 when he saw his best friend killed during an Army patrol in Vietnam.
In papers filed in federal court in White Plains, Pacenza said the stress caused him to become ''a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict.'' He claimed protection under the American with Disabilities Act.
His lawyer, Michael Diederich, says Pacenza never visited pornographic sites at work, violated no written IBM rule and did not surf the Internet any more or any differently than other employees. He also says age discrimination contributed to IBM's actions. Pacenza, 55 at the time, had been with the company for 19 years and says he could have retired in a year.
International Business Machines Corp. has asked Judge Stephen Robinson for a summary judgment, saying its policy against surfing sexual Web sites is clear. It also claims Pacenza was told he could lose his job after an incident four months earlier, which Pacenza denies.
''Plaintiff was discharged by IBM because he visited an Internet chat room for a sexual experience during work after he had been previously warned,'' the company said.
IBM also said sexual behavior disorders are specifically excluded from the ADA and denied any age discrimination.
Court papers arguing the motion for summary judgment will be exchanged next month.
If it goes to trial, the case could affect how employers regulate Internet use that is not work-related, or how Internet overuse is categorized medically. Stanford University issued a nationwide study last year that found that up to 14 percent of computer users reported neglecting work, school, families, food and sleep to use the Internet.
The study's director, Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, said then that he was most concerned about the numbers of people who hid their nonessential Internet use or used the Internet to escape a negative mood, much in the same way that alcoholics might.
Until he was fired, Pacenza was making $65,000 a year operating a machine at a plant in East Fishkill that makes computer chips.
Several times during the day, machine operators are idle for five to 10 minutes as the tool measures the thickness of silicon wafers.
It was during such down time on May 28, 2003, that Pacenza logged onto a chat room from a computer at his work station.
Diederich says Pacenza had returned that day from visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and logged onto a site called ChatAvenue and then to an adult chat room.
Pacenza, who has a wife and two children, said using the Internet at work was encouraged by IBM and served as ''a form of self-medication'' for post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he tried to stay away from chat rooms at work, but that day, ''I felt I needed the interactive engagement of chat talk to divert my attention from my thoughts of Vietnam and death.''
''I was tempting myself to perhaps become involved in some titillating conversation,'' he said in court papers.
Pacenza said he was called away before he got involved in any online conversation. But he apparently did not log off, and when another worker went to Pacenza's station, he saw some chat entries, including a vulgar reference to a sexual act.
He reported his discovery to his boss, who fired Pacenza the next day.
Pacenza says he would have understood if IBM had disciplined him for taking an unauthorized break, but firing him was too extreme.
He argues that other workers with worse offenses were disciplined less severely — including a couple who had sex on a desk and were transferred.
Fred McNeese, a spokesman for Armonk-based IBM, would not comment.
Pacenza claims the company decided on dismissal only after improperly viewing his medical records, including psychiatric treatment, following the incident.
''In IBM management's eyes, plaintiff has an undesirable and self-professed record of psychological disability related to his Vietnam War combat experience,'' his papers claim.
Diederich says IBM workers who have drug or alcohol problems are placed in programs to help them, and Pacenza should have been offered the same. Instead, he says, Pacenza was told there were no programs for sex addiction or other psychological illnesses. He said Pacenza was also denied an appeal.
Diederich, who said he spent a year in Iraq as an Army lawyer, also argued that ''A military combat veteran, if anyone, should be afforded a second chance, the benefit of doubt and afforded reasonable accommodation for combat-related disability.''
Lots of "fun takes" on this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1786877/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1755174/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1753670/posts
You know this strikes me as another crude attempt...
....oops gotta go....the boss is coming.
Which led to litigation addiction, the proceeds of which he can blow as a gambling addict.
This aint gonna fly
Somebody gets horny and its a sex addiction. Give me a break.
I wonder if the wife buys off on that one?
How do you operate a machine and surf the net at the same time?
The Internet made him do it.....
The Internet has porn sites......
Al Gore invented the Internet.......
Therefore, Al Gore made him visit porn sites.....
Everything can be blamed on a liberal!
I'm thinking that IBM's IT department is falling down on the job.
Surely a competent IT department could block employee access to chat rooms...mine can.
How dumb can someone be?
My husband works for IBM and h said the comments from some co-workers yesterday were quite comical. If you're using the IBM network, you know bloody well they know exactly where you are going when online.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
BTTT
Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon . . . you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.
In my 20's I neglected all of the above in pursuit of getting laid.
And with only minimal success, I might add.
"Is this cashmere?"
For no good reason, this causes me to mention that the WoW South Park episode was the funniest thing ever shown on TV.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.